After two decades in a family building trade, the LAKAY Building and Remodeling owner’s operational standards double as a vetting checklist for consumers
Hiring a contractor is the highest-variance purchasing decision most homeowners ever make. The same project, at the same price, can resolve as a well-managed improvement or a multi-year dispute, and the difference is rarely visible in the sales meeting where the decision gets made.
It is visible, however, in the paperwork, if the homeowner knows what to look for.
Jason Pecoy has spent more than twenty years in construction, first working alongside his father, veteran New England builder Kent Pecoy, then overseeing construction operations at the family company, and now as owner of LAKAY Building and Remodeling Inc., which serves residential and light commercial clients across Western Massachusetts and Connecticut. The standards his firm operates by amount to a practical checklist for evaluating any contractor, including his own.
The Contract Is the Tell
The single most predictive document in a construction relationship is the initial contract, and its predictive power lies in its specificity. A detailed contract demonstrates that the contractor has actually thought through the project: the scope, the materials, the allowances, the exclusions, and the sequence. A vague one demonstrates the opposite, and vagueness at signing converts reliably into disputes at invoicing.
Homeowners should read the contract before committing and notice what is missing. Anything undefined is a decision the contractor will make later, on the contractor’s terms.
Change Orders Separate Professionals From Problems
No renovation of an older home proceeds exactly as scoped, and any contractor who promises otherwise is selling something. The professional standard is not the absence of surprises but the handling of them: a written change order describing the additional work and its cost, approved by the client before the work proceeds.
The question to ask a prospective contractor is simple. When you find something unexpected, what happens next, and what does the paperwork look like? Firms with a real answer produce it immediately, because it is how they already operate. Firms without one improvise, and improvisation is exactly what the client will be buying.
References Age Like the Work Does
Any contractor can produce a satisfied client from last month. The references that carry information are the older ones, from projects that have been lived in for several years, because construction quality reveals itself on a delay. The homeowner two winters past a renovation knows things about the workmanship that the homeowner two weeks past it cannot.
A related test costs nothing: watch how the contractor listens in the first meeting. A firm that hears the client before the deposit clears is displaying its operating culture. A firm that talks past the client in the sales process will not develop the habit afterward.
None of these tests requires construction expertise. They require only the recognition that a contractor’s process is the product, and that the process is fully on display before any contract is signed. The homeowners who inspect it then rarely need to litigate it later.
About the Subject
Jason Pecoy is the Owner of LAKAY Building and Remodeling Inc., a Wilbraham, Massachusetts construction firm serving residential and light commercial clients across Western Massachusetts and Connecticut. With more than 20 years in the building trade, he is known for detailed project management, transparent client communication, and a specialty in complex and unconventional builds.
Published Originally on — https://www.gigwise.com/jason-pecoy-the-questions-homeowners-should-ask-before-hiring-a-contractor/
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